Being Light and Comfort to the World

By The Chancellor Very Rev. Fr. Andrew Mensah Amankwaa

Mass in celebration of the Day of Consecrated Life for men and women religious of the Diocese of Sunyani

12 Feberaury 2011, St. Mary’s School Hall, Odumase

My Dear Men and Women Religious,

It gives me great pleasure to share with you the word of God on this special occasion in which you have gathered to reflect upon your religious life. The readings today draw our attention on how Jesus was presented to the Lord by his parents.

In the first reading the prophet Malachi, presented the darkness that was prevailing at his time. While the reconstruction of the temple had been completed in the 5th century B.C., still the reform of the priestly class had not yet occurred. Malachi refers to the people as being precious to God like gold or silver, but still marked with impurities that the refiner’s fire would need to burn away. But the passage has a hopeful tone, because it foretells the arrival of God’s messenger who will prepare God’s people for the coming of the Lord, himself. Our Gospel passage is the fulfillment of Malachi’s prophecy as Mary and Joseph fulfill the dictate of the law found in Exodus 13:2 by consecrating their first-born son in the temple of the Lord, as well as fulfilling the dictates found in Leviticus 12:8 whereby the child’s mother offers an appropriate sacrifice.

The theme of consecration in reference to Jesus, however, takes on an warning tone when the prophet, Simeon, tells Mary that her child is destined for the rise and fall of many—a sign to be contradicted, which will also act as a sword to pierce her heart. Even as he is being revealed as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” and glory for the people of Israel, the shadow of the cross is not far away, reminding us of that ultimate, selfless sacrifice which Christ will make for humanity.

And this, of course, is where the reading from Hebrews moves our meditation to ponder the mystery of the Paschal Mystery. For it was precisely by taking on our human flesh that Jesus was ultimately to render powerless the Master of death and by his resurrection to deliver us from slavery to sin and death that continued to weigh upon us.

We have gathered this afternoon as consecrated men and women to proclaim Christ to be our light, our truth, our source of salvation. And we do so like Simeon and the prophetess, Anna, with eyes of faith, with hearts filled with thanksgiving and with wills determined to speak about this child to all who are awaiting redemption.

First of all, we are told that Simeon was a righteous and devout man upon whom the Holy Spirit rested. Anna, herself, is described as always being in the temple where she worshipped with prayer and fasting. Their devotion freed them from any preconceptions or assumptions that would have kept them from recognizing Jesus.

In a similar way, those who have consecrated their lives to living the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience are a constant reminder to the rest of us in the Church that we must seek the perfection of charity by which those counsels are fueled. The essential witness of religious life within the life of the Church is a daily reminder to us that the Kingdom is near and will come.

The presence of religious men and women in the Church fills us with a sense of thanksgiving for the various manifestations of the Holy Spirit, creating diverse ways of expressing our fundamental unity in truth.

The Second Vatican Council’s constitution, Lumen Gentium, expresses it this way:
“From the God-given seed of the counsels a wonderful and wide spreading tree has grown up in the field of the Lord, branching out into various forms of the religious life lived in solitude or in community. Different religious families have come into existence in which spiritual resources are multiplied for the progress in holiness of their members and for the good of the entire Body of Christ.” (L.G. 43)

Indeed, like the prophetic voices of Simeon and Anna, men and women in consecrated life speak about Christ to all who await redemption by fulfilling their respective charisms. Whether it be in works of teaching or healing, in caring for the poor or providing leadership for the Church, religious men and women are true missionaries who bring the message of the Gospel to others within the framework of the teachings of our Church.

Your lives as consecrated religious is at the very heart of the Church – because your radical embrace of the gospel makes manifest the inner nature of every Christian’s calling. Or, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, “the ultimate norm of religious life is the following of Christ (vitae religiosae ultima norma sequela Christi). You have vowed to live the evangelical counsels: poverty, chastity and obedience which the world – and too often the faithful – see as simply renunciations. However, they are more than that – for each counsel in its own unique way is a specific acceptance of the Mystery of Christ lived within the Church.
In John Paul II’s Vita Consecrata, an apostolic exhortation delivered after the Synod on Consecrated Life in 1995, he describes religious life as an “Icon of the Transfigured Christ” - for the vowed life does proclaim and anticipate the future age when we will experience the fullness of the Kingdom. In this way, vowed religious are witnesses to hope. Your lives testify to the fact that God matters – and today when so much of society wishes to live as if he did not matter, it is not surprising that the vocation you have embraced is viewed by many with skepticism if not ridicule. The religious life is a “sign of contradiction” that challenges – and must always challenge the assumptions of those who do not take God in account.

Vatican II rightly emphasized that all the baptized are called to holiness. Thus, all are equally called to follow Christ, to discover in him the ultimate meaning of our existence. However, like those chosen disciples, those whose baptismal consecration has developed into a radical response to the following of Christ expressed in vows of poverty, chastity and obedience have a “special experience of the light that shines forth from the Incarnate Word”.

Considering John Paul II’s assertion that the religious life is an “icon of the Transfigured Christ” then the words spoken then by Peter: "Lord, it is well that we are here" (Mt 17:4) can be appropriated most fittingly by you in your response to your vocation to the consecrated life. You too can say: how good it is for us to be with you, Lord; to devote ourselves to you, to make you the one focus of our lives! If we want to renew religious life and revitalize our religious communities, if we want to promote vocations to the religious life and to the priesthood, we have to continue to introduce young people to the person of Jesus Christ as he is known and encountered in the life of the Church, namely as Peter recognized him as Christ, the Son of the Living God.

You are like a "leaven" of hope for humanity. You are "salt" and "light" for the men and women of today, who through your witness can glimpse the kingdom of God and the way of the Gospel "Beatitudes". Like Simeon and Anna, take Jesus from the arms of his most holy Mother and, filled with joy for the gift of your vocation, bring him to everyone. Christ is salvation and hope for every person! Proclaim him by your life dedicated entirely to the kingdom of God and the world's salvation. Proclaim him with that uncompromising fidelity which, even recently, has led some of your brothers and sisters in various parts of the world to martyrdom.

Be light and comfort to everyone you meet. Like lighted candles, burn with the love of Christ. Spend yourselves for him, spreading the Gospel of his love everywhere. Through your witness the eyes of many men and women of our time will also be able to see the salvation prepared by God "in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel"

May Mary, who was prompt in obedience, courageous in poverty and receptive in fruitful virginity as she fulfilled the Father’s will, obtain from Jesus that “all who have received the gift of following him in the consecrated life may be enabled to bear witness to that gift by their transfigured lives, as they joyfully make their way with all their brothers and sisters towards our heavenly homeland and the light that will never grow dim” (Vita consecrata, n. 112).

Praised be Jesus Christ!